Pure in Heart

      One of my favorite authors, Philip Yancey, shows a common misunderstanding of Jesus’ sixth beatitude. Most Bible versions read, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) Yancey in his books uses this text to back up discussions on sexual lust. (See The Jesus I Never Knew, pages 118-119, and Rumours of Another World, pages 86-88).

      The problem is: This is not the central thrust of the sixth beatitude.  Biblical scholars point in a different direction as reflected in J.B. Philip’s version of the New Testament. “Happy are the utterly sincere, for they will see God!”

      Discussing this beatitude, John R.W. Stott has said, “…The primary reference is to sincerity. Already in the verses of Psalm 24 … the person with ‘clean hands and a pure heart’ is one who ‘does not lift up his soul to what is false … and does not swear deceitfully. That is, in his relations with God and man he is free from falsehood… Their whole life, public and private, is transparent before God and men. Their very heart - including their thoughts and motives – is pure, unmixed with anything devious, ulterior or base. Hypocrisy and deceit are abhorrent to them; they are without guile.” Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (IVP, 1978), page 49.

      William Barclay went into more detail on this beatitude in his book, The Beatitudes & The Lord’s Prayer for Everyman (Harper & Row, 1964), pages 76-85, which is well worth reading and thinking about. He also discussed it in his Daily Study Bible Series on Matthew (pages 105-108) and offered another translation as “Blessed is the man whose motives are always entirely unmixed, for that man shall see God.”

      A more appropriate Scripture to back up Jesus’ view of sexual lust comes a little later in the same chapter of Matthew (5:27-28). Though he speaks of adultery, it applies to any such lust.